Sonar Pings May Cause Temporary Deafness In Dolphins

Military sonar exercises could be to blame for numerous beachings of dolphins and whales due to temporary deafness, scientists suggest in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters on Wednesday.

The study is the first to test a theory that claims mammals can lose their hearing due to the strong mid-frequency sonar used by military submarines and other ships.

These mammals rely on sonar to navigate through the waters, without it, they can lose direction and become stranded.

Aran Mooney at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution at the University of Hawaii, led a team of researchers who exposed a trained Atlantic bottlenose dolphin to pings of mid-frequency sonar that continued to become louder.